Laser tissue welding is a sutureless method of wound closure that has been used successfully in nerve, skin, and arterial anastomoses. We welded an elastin-based biomaterial that elicits minimal foreign body reaction to the intimal surface of porcine aorta. The aorta was stained with indocyanine green dye to efficiently absorb the 808nm diode laser light. Laser welding with a pulsed diode laser thermally confines heating to stained portion of tissue, minimizing adjacent tissue damage. Laser welds of stained aorta to biomaterial were attempted by sandwiching the samples between glass slides and applying pressures ranging from 4-20N/cm2 for 5ms pulse durations and 83mJ/mm2 radiant exposure. Welds were successful for pressure above 5N/cm2. Transmission measurements of stained aorta were made using radiant exposures of 6-129mJ/mm2 using pulse durations of 0.5-5ms. Transmission increases and reaches a maximum of 80-85% with successive pulses for radiant exposure greater than 26mJ/mm2 for a spot size of 9mm2 and 13mJ/mm2 for a spot size of 36mm2.
E. N. La Joie, A. D. Barofsky, K. W. Gregory, and S. A. Prahl. Welding artificial biomaterial with a pulsed diode laser and indocyanine green. In R. R. Anderson, editor, Proceedings of Lasers in Surgery: Advanced Characterization, Therapeutics, and Systems V, volume 2395, pages 508-516, San Jose, CA, 1995. SPIE.